


Black & Red I: The Early Days Chapter

by AutumnWoodsDreamer



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Arc Reactor, Arc Reactor Issues, Avengers Family, F/M, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Team as Family, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23888860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnWoodsDreamer/pseuds/AutumnWoodsDreamer
Summary: A collection of moments following Tony and Natasha as they bond.
Relationships: Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark
Comments: 38
Kudos: 163





	1. Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a brief moment of calm, Tony and Natalie talk...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during IM2, can work as just a deleted scene.

On the flight home from Monaco, Natasha sat with Happy in a separate compartment from Tony and Pepper.

Remarkably, the hair-raising ordeal on the racetrack hadn’t fazed the ex-boxer; actually, he was quite eager to chat, mostly about how crazy working for Mr Stark had become in the last few months. Even as he bluntly confessed the impact of the wild and unexpected turn his job had taken, he made it a point to reassure Natalie that, despite her proximity to Mr Stark, she didn’t have to worry about the danger because he wouldn’t let harm come to her.

Graciously, she didn’t mention the “lesson” in the ring the day before—the pug was too sincere and endearing to be reminded that his efforts to protect her would be pitiful at best.

She indulged him in pleasant conversation for a stretch, letting him talk as much as he desired. When they reached cruising altitude, she shamelessly slipped a sedative in his coffee so she could focus on her main objective again.

She had planted undetectable and untraceable bugs on anyone she deemed important to the mission but she remained permanently tuned into Tony’s. With her company unconscious for the remainder of the flight, she could finally concentrate.

Unfortunately, as she discovered, Happy was a ferocious snorer. The sedative knocked him out within a minute of ingestion; he managed one yawn and half a comment on how suddenly sleepy he was before being reduced to an ungraceful heap of bodyguard in a luxurious leather armchair—limbs slack, neck bent awkwardly, mouth hanging wide open, throat producing an imitation of dying whales and crumbling buildings.

Natasha glared at the unconscious man and heartily considered jamming a sock in his mouth. But then the unmistakable sound of vomiting came through the earpiece and she decided she’d rather listen to Happy’s rendition of tortured orcas than Stark’s business.

She had an iron constitution and she could stand an impressive level of guts and gore without changing shade, but the SHIELD-issue listening device relayed disturbingly clear audio and over an hour filled with harsh retching made even her stomach twinge.

Between the bouts of intense vomiting, the man coughed and struggled for breath. Once or twice, he let slip a barely audible whimper.

_“Painful way to die,” Vanko had said._

Natasha wondered if Fury had had any success with that “long shot” he mentioned; by her estimates, Stark needed a miracle _yesterday_.

Listening to him suffer tugged at some repressed but not completely uprooted instinct that made her want to get up and do something to make it better. She didn’t have a word for it so she called it sympathy, but she was sure it was something else.

Eventually, it ended and he flushed. There was another twenty or so minutes where she could hear him shivering and trying to compose himself, repeatedly splashing water on his face and rinsing his mouth. Then there was a long series of mysterious clanging and clattering, some cracking and confused muttering, a little bit of splashing, and a sharp hiss followed by a grunt.

It all made sense a few minutes later when he came through to Pepper with her special “in-flight meal.”

(So Natasha wasn’t imagining the growing stench of burnt egg seeping through the cabin...)

Unabashedly, she listened to their private conversation. There were layers to it that she suspected the participants were unaware of: his suffering, her ignorance; his desperation, her apathy; his dilemma, her weariness.

The exchange was short and sad as they flew past each other without touching, the point mutually missed.

Silence settled in between them for the remainder of the flight home; even with no further audio input, Natasha could sense it wasn’t comfortable and it made her strangely thankful for Happy and his impromptu opera comprised of butchered moose mating calls.

* * *

The lights of LA welcomed them, sparkling in the distance like a bedazzled horizon as the jet touched down in the private airfield just outside the factory.

Rhodes was waiting for them on the tarmac, leaning stiffly against his silver car with tightly folded arms and painfully straight spine. He watched them step off the jet with something hard and grave setting like cement on the edges of his schooled expression.

The little group drew closer and he glanced quickly over everyone, reading their faces with trained perception; his gaze lingered questioningly over Natalie, his brow furrowing slightly.

“She’s with me,” Tony told him, glibly, as he brushed past.

Rhodes gave a nod and asked nothing further.

They all piled into the sleek sedan and he drove them back to the Malibu house, stopping along the way to drop Happy off at his apartment—the sedative was still in effect, leaving him uncharacteristically sloth-like, but on the bright side, he wouldn’t have jet lag the next day.

As they drove up to the modern art sculpture of a house, lights embedded along the winding driveway blinked on, making the precisely spaced palm trees glow in a fantastical way.

They entered the house and Jarvis calmly greeted them; Tony instinctively cast a glance and a smile up at the ceiling, as if that were where the AI resided.

Pepper had been all but surgically attached to her phone since they got off the jet. Heels clicking with a strict, unspoken warning, she responded to a hail of questions with a series of carefully composed and craftily noncommittal phrases as she strode determinedly through to the living room.

Tony quietly slipped away to the kitchen and Rhodes faltered for a moment in the hallway, eyes flicking between his friend and Pepper, torn between duties. Ultimately, he followed Pepper, deciding for the present that she needed his assistance more.

Natalie clung to her boss’s side, effortlessly keeping in step while listing off all the important messages that came through while they were in transit like a good little PA should.

Tony made it painfully obvious that he wasn’t the least bit interested in devoting his rapidly dwindling energy to answering calls from government and military figures: he gave half-hearted, distracted responses, didn’t raise an eyebrow when she told him the president had personally tried to call and ask for reassurance, and the mention of an upset Thunderbolt Ross didn’t elicit so much as an eye-roll.

“Natalie? Sweetie? You’re killing me,” Tony interrupted when they stepped into the kitchen. “Can we please take a break? I’m gonna go into hypoglycaemic shock if I don’t eat something.”

He tried to hide his honesty as hyperbole but it wasn’t lost on her. She quietly watched on as he opened the refrigerator and plunged his entire upper body in, keeping himself tethered with a firm grasp on the door as he rummaged like a raccoon only to emerge with a shake made who knows when—she suspected the ugly black-green colour was not part of the design.

“That doesn’t count as eating,” she commented as he popped the lid with a loud _clip_.

“‘Course it does,” he insisted, blithely, and threw back a mouthful in one brave gulp. He swallowed and his face immediately crumpled in pure, unadulterated disgust.

For an uncomfortable moment, Natasha waited, fully expecting to see that very mouthful of smoothie splatter on the floor between them. Miraculously, he kept it down and she didn’t have to demonstrate her gymnastic training by backflipping onto the counter.

“I’m leaving dried spinach out of the next one,” he grumbled once he had recovered. He braced and took another swig.

She closed her binder and set it down on the uncluttered counter. “You need something more substantial,” she said, lightly seasoning her tone with only an appropriate measure of concern.

He swirled the thick sludge around the bottle, gazing at it with both contemplation and apprehension. “Trust me, this has a lot of substance to it.”

“Well, how’s about something that doesn’t resemble toxic waste?”

“Don’t insult my cooking.”

She gave him one of Natalie’s little half-smiles and opened the refrigerator to look for ideas and ingredients. “Fruit salad and yogurt?” she suggested.

His eyes darted from the malodorous gloop to the fresh tub of yogurt in her hands. “Okay,” he quickly conceded, placing the bottle on the edge of the counter: out of sight and out of mind.

She extracted a selection of fruit-salad worthy fruit and placed them on the counter then turned to finding the other things she’d need. The kitchen was, of course, kitted out with a little more than the necessities—a part of her wouldn’t have minded spending a day baking with all these lovely gadgets and gizmos. Shutting out the fleeting fantasy, she extracted a knife from the butcher’s block and embarked on a search for a chopping board.

Tony noticed and whirled around to retrieve one from a nearby cupboard for her. He set the wooden block down on the counter and continued staring at it, his mind suddenly somewhere else. “Natalie? Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

He paused and considered, his gaze drifting to the expanse of perfect glass dominating the far wall and the moonlight and city lights twinkling on the inky smooth ocean beyond—it wasn’t hard to see he wanted to be there.

“Do you have a family?” he finally asked, his voice devoid of everything so well publicized about him.

“A brother,” she replied without missing a beat. “He lives in Iowa.”

“Younger? Older?”

“He’s older.”

“You close?”

“I’d say so.”

He nodded, absently, and his gaze fell away from the windows. He got out a glass and moved to the sink to fill it as she started slicing an apple. “Do you ever think about... having a family of your own?” Before she could reply, he gave a quick shrug that tried too hard to be casual as he amended: “I mean, don’t get me wrong, with a resume like yours, you have quite the career ahead of you. And that’s... cool, that’s very cool. But, do you ever think... maybe?”

She jerked her head to part her curtain of hair so she could see him better; she hadn’t anticipated this topic, certainly not with the Tony Stark, but she made sure Natalie remained light and unfazed, open and conversational, sweet and disarming. “It’s crossed my mind, sure; the whole rose garden and picket fence life sounds nice.” She drew a flippant circle in the air with her knife. “But you can’t have it all.”

(That last bit fit with the context and she said it simply, but it would reopen an old wound later that night when she couldn’t sleep.)

“So I’ve been told,” Tony said and drank down the whole glass of water in one go.

Their conversation ended there, but the silence they slipped into was easy and nothing like the repressive version he and Pepper had to sit through on the flight home.

He stood a respectful distance away, leaning heavily on the counter and watching with dark, tired eyes as she sliced up a variety of fruit, portioning it out into four bowls and generously drizzling each with Greek yogurt, honey, and a handful of muesli. It was a dish better suited to breakfast, but it would help keep them all awake long enough for them to deal with the media storm brewing on the horizon.

They each carried two bowls as they joined the others in the living room. Natalie gave one to Rhodes and he accepted it with a quick, thankful nod; Tony placed a bowl on the coffee table in front of Pepper who glanced at it but not him, her attention never leaving the phone call.

Tony backed away then, burned by the ice, and turned to head to the workshop, his head ever so slightly ducked.

Before he disappeared, Natasha reached out. It wasn’t for the sake of her cover, it wasn’t for the mission, it wasn’t even a calculated action, it just... seemed like the right thing to do.

He stopped and looked at the slender hand on his arm. He hadn’t jumped and he didn’t try to shirk her off; he just stared in surprise.

“You alright?” she asked, her voice low, her expression sincere.

He glanced up at her and the mask fell. Brown eyes conveyed the rawest fear; fear she’d seen in the eyes of too many people who didn’t make it to today. He blinked, but it was still there when he answered: “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying to polish up my stories and organize them so, hopefully, this works out well...


	2. Gather Up Your Jackets and Move It to the Exits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Battle of New York but before the team heads out for shawarma, Natasha checks up on Tony...

Once in the elevator and out of direct line of sight of spies and soldiers, Tony slumped against the wall and let his breath out in a rush.

The last ounce of adrenaline his body had scraped together to meet the day’s outrageous demands had actually fizzled out a few hours ago; he’d been running on the fumes of stoicism since just to keep himself appearing steady because shaking like an over-caffeinated chihuahua like he was now was just plain undignified.

Plenty of competition vied for the title of “Strangest Day Ever” (without the tacked on concession of “So Far”) but he suspected this particular day would hold the honour for the longest time to come. Now that it was mostly over, he just wanted to take a shower, to wash away every trace of the day and rid himself of the astringent stench of sweat and scorched metal and other... stuff.

Before he could do that, of course, he would have to shuck the armour. He’d already lost the faceplate somewhere on the street below and he’d discarded the helmet somewhere in the living room. The rest of the armour was badly damaged, weighing too heavy on his fatigued bones with some parts twisted and crushed just so as to dig painfully into his already battered and bruised body. With every second inching past, his desperation to be free of this mangled metal shell deepened.

The elevator doors eventually slid open and he lumbered into the sanctuary of his workshop, his armoured footsteps clanking heavily and metallically, the cavernous space amplifying the distinct ringing of the echoes.

The whole saga with the portal had messed with the Tower’s arc reactor in ways Tony didn’t yet understand; Jarvis—wonderful, efficient Jarvis—had, with what control he managed to commandeer, automatically shut down nonessential systems and rerouted power to the necessities, so the ventilation worked perfectly, but the elevators were slow and the lights were all on half-strength. The Tower’s armoury was already a new and unfamiliar space, but it acquired an eerily alien quality with the drastically dimmed lighting.

The assembly line awoke lazily, whirring and moaning like a mechanical creature that wasn’t happy with its sleep being disturbed. Silver arms unfurled from the ceiling like clunky vines, reaching for him with pincers and claws and robotic fingers. Tony stepped up onto the platform and stood still, having learned long ago that fidgeting resulted in unpleasant pinching.

He was never a fan of the dismantling process, so he approached the design of the MK VII specifically with the hopes of putting the rig out of service: the plates were designed to spread apart and knit back together by themselves, and, to boot, he had improved the manual release system so, should he lose power, he could quickly and easily free himself by a series of cleverly concealed catches. But the aliens (and even the Hulk with his stunning but no less indelicate rescue) had damaged the armour just enough that the only way he was getting out of it tonight was if he let the rig help.

It was a good couple of minutes of borderline unbearable noise as the machines tugged, pulled, twisted, yanked, and even sawed to get the armour off. The process seemed to be excruciatingly eked out and Tony teetered precariously on the edge of freaking out throughout.

The last crumpled plate clattered to the floor and he finally let himself breathe. But searing pain all too quickly eclipsed the relief; when the robotic arms pried away the last section of the abdominal armour, they unwittingly removed the last bit of pressure disguising his injuries.

He shouldn’t have been surprised: between haphazardly repairing a Helicarrier engine, going toe-to-toe with incomprehensibly strong aliens, and being tackled by the Hulk, he’d been hit, slammed, and pummeled from every possible angle these past two days.

Nonetheless, he was caught unaware by the severity of the pain. To keep himself from crumbling to the floor where he wouldn’t be able to help himself, he clamped his arms around his middle and forced his legs to hold him. About as steady as a newborn giraffe, he stumbled away from the rig over to the cluster of desks a few feet away, unceremoniously collapsing into his chair and clumsily skittering back against the table.

“Jarvis?” he bit out through gritted teeth, folding over himself and remaining rigid, too scared to move.

“I detect nothing more sinister than superficial cuts, bruises, and minor fractures in three ribs,” the artificial intelligence promptly told him. “I would have informed you sooner, but you explicitly requested I not continue reading out your injuries.”

There was a note of disapproval in the disembodied voice. Tony remembered snapping out the order that the AI focus on the aliens pouring out the hole in the sky and the civilians struggling to escape danger below rather than cataloging his bumps and scrapes; Jarvis, whose main objective was the care and preservation of his creator, was not pleased, but he complied without argument.

“No internal bleeding or ruptured organs?” Tony pressed.

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“So I’m gonna live?”

“Once again, in spite of your best efforts, yes.” Beneath the tongue in cheek, Jarvis sounded genuinely pleased.

Tentatively armed with that assurance, Tony turned to face his reflection in the dormant computer screens and lifted his shirt, wincing as he beheld the massive splotch of deep indigo dominating his midsection.

He didn’t have to poke to know it would hurt, but, like a dim-witted chimpanzee, he poked anyway; a sharp hiss slipped between his teeth when the light touch predictably stung.

“While I understand your aversion to pain medication, I do wish you would consider a mild dose to relieve the discomfort,” Jarvis said, his artificial tone remarkably tender.

“I’ll see about it.” _Translation: Not on your digital hard-drive._

“Then may I advise the use of the brace at least?”

Tony let out a childish whine. “I hate that thing.”

“I know, Sir.”

“It pinches.”

“As you have stated before. However, you might find upright positions less torturous with its support.”

“Do I even still have it?”

“You packed it in with your spare flight-suit.”

Tony calmed down then; if Jarvis was willing to prescribe over-the-counter pain relief and a brace over finding loopholes in his instructions and programming to get immediate aid to his creator, then he would be fine.

A wave of drowsiness overtook him and he let it, deciding that he had rightfully earned a moment to decompress. He pulled himself closer to the desk, folded his arms on the cool surface, bent forward cautiously, shifted until he found an angle that took the weight off the majority of his injuries, and rested his head on his arms.

He wasn’t going to sleep. No. This was just a quick breather then he’d get to his feet, paste on his patented nonchalance, saunter upstairs, round up the mob in his living room, and they would all go celebrate their victory with food he’d never heard of before.

In a minute, he would definitely do that.

His shoulders drooped.

His eyes slipped closed.

The low hum of the building’s systems gradually hushed and grew distant, as if they’d been submerged in thick water.

Something blurred across his vision like the headlights of a speeding car at night. Then came another and another. His eyes darted unseeingly behind closed lids to track the insubstantial entities zipping across his vision.

The backdrop shifted: light then dark, clouds then stars, fire then smoke.

His muscles were tensing, straining, burning; thoughts racing, stalling, faltering.

Something hit him in the back, something kicked his legs out from under him, then something hit him in the stomach.

He fell back -

With a jolt that wasn’t much more than a spasm of fatigued muscles, Tony woke up. A glance at the desk clock told him he hadn’t been out for even a full minute.

He let out a long, controlled breath. This wasn’t an unfamiliar ailment: a phantom replay of the day’s action would haunt him for another day or so; he would see it all so vividly and feel it so intensely, but it would eventually fade to blurs and echoes that sometimes reappeared as distorted elements in his deepest dreams—just like the cave, just like the factory rooftop, just like Monaco, just like the Expo.

That’s not to say it wasn’t unsettling or that he was used to it...

“Sir?” Jarvis’ voice unobtrusively reached through the silence.

“Just dozed off, J; I’m fine,” Tony assured in a mumble, drawing his arms closer together—the Tower’s climate control must’ve been another system relegated to the realms of minimal priority.

“Sir...” the AI trailed off, as if apprehensive.

“Something on your mind, buddy?”

“I... have some concerns.”

“Do share.”

There came another pause, too well-timed to be anything but calculated. “I have collected and analyzed fragments of data from the MK VII.”

“You get any substantial readings from the wormhole?” Exhausted beyond belief but the scientist in him still wanted to play.

“A fair amount, though the majority of the armour’s systems including its scanners were corrupted and disengaged upon entering the portal; you did, after all, fly through an anomaly that bent space itself in a suit not designed with such an environment in mind.”

“You make me sound like the most extreme adrenaline junkie in history.”

“I’m not convinced you aren’t, Sir. However, your health, as always, is my main concern, and it has come to my attention that your heart stopped before the armour went offline.”

Tony lifted his head. “Before?”

As confirmation, the computer screen nearest him awoke and played the final moments before he shot through the doorway to another galaxy.

A bar beneath the disturbingly clear video tracked his vitals—he watched both simultaneously. Like Jarvis pointed out, as he rapidly approached the portal and the edges of the video flickered with static, his heart—which had been beating obscenely fast—unceremoniously flatlined.

A foreign system of stars filled the screen for all of two seconds before the video died, leaving Tony staring at a man with wide, horrified eyes—it took him another minute to recognize himself.

He shut his eyes and swallowed hard; his mouth and throat were as dry as sand but he feared even a sip of water wouldn’t treat him well right now. “So... it wasn’t... it wasn’t actually going through the portal that stopped my heart?”

“It would appear not, Sir.”

“So, what then? Did one of those aliens hit me with something? Was it that—that glow-stick thingy?”

“I believe it traces back to an underlying problem with your heart.”

“I don’t have a problem with my heart, J,” Tony said, suddenly feeling defensive. “I have shrapnel _around_ my heart, but my heart itself is perfectly fine. Remember? Pepper had that Doctor What’s-His-Name check me out after the Expo. He ran those tests and said I was fine. And—and you just said I was... fine.”

He ran out of breath and had to halt his argument. It was probably just as well: “fine” no longer sounded like a real word, anyway.

“Sir, to be fair, Dr Santini did admit he’d never seen a case such as yours and that he couldn’t predict the ultimate effect the shrapnel, the arc reactor, and the poisoning would have on your health. The sheer exertion of the past 48 hours has put enough strain on your heart to bring the problem to the surface.”

Tony rubbed his eyes. This day just wasn’t going to end. “Okay, so what is the problem?”

“I am afraid I am unable to determine the extent of the damage to your heart. I strongly recommend you seek professional medical advice.”

“C’mon, J, I didn’t give you all the bells and whistles so you could just refer me to some monkey,” he said, weariness coming off as petulance.

“Sir, I am not equipped to assess and manage serious medical conditions,” Jarvis sternly insisted.

Tony let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, then, can I deal with this later? I really do feel fine.”

“Sir, please -”

“Just tell me: Will I drop dead in the next two hours?”

“Sir -”

“ _Will I_?” he repeated, sharper than necessary.

“Presumably, no.”

“Then let’s leave it for now and I’ll see to it later. Okay? Good.” With finality, he clapped a hand on the desk. “I’m starving. Are the others done scrubbing up yet?”

Jarvis paused, unhappy with his creator’s intent diversion. Again, though, he complied. “Dr Banner has dressed and is currently helping treat Captain Rogers’ injuries; Agent Barton is still in the bathroom; and Agent Romanov appears to be making her way here.”

A smile twitched on Tony’s lips at that last bit. It occurred to him then that he hadn’t spoken face-to-face with the spy once throughout this whole fiasco (barring hacking into her jet’s PA system and exchanging a handful of snappy quips in the heat of battle). While he wouldn’t exactly label them “friends”, she was the only familiar face around him at present.

“Grant her access when she arrives. And tell the Hawk shawarma’s for people who don’t leave messes in their host’s bathrooms.”

“Yes, Sir.” The AI sounded resigned but he didn’t press any further now—he knew how to pick his battles.

The wall separating the workshop from the hallway turned transparent and, hardly a minute later, Natasha appeared. She was still in her SHIELD uniform, still covered in dust and grime, her fiery curls falling not quite symmetrically, but her face was clean and she walked with an even pace and regal posture despite her limp.

The door opened as if by a breeze just as she reached it; she halted and blinked, her only visible concession to surprise.

“Looking for something, Romanov?” Tony called, negotiating with his bruised and broken ribs to try ease his posture into something resembling casual.

She stepped over the threshold, glancing over her shoulder at the door as if she didn’t believe it had meant to open for her. “I came to check on you,” she said, simply.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Rogers told me to.”

The eyebrow fell. “Oh.”

“He says you promised dinner.”

“Right. I sorta did.” Tony nudged at the ground with his foot to push his chair closer to the desk; the pain was starting to make him dizzy. He intended to get to his feet soon, but he didn’t want to attempt so in front of an audience. “How is the Good Captain otherwise?” he asked, conversationally, occupying his fidgety hands with the pen cup.

Natasha folded her arms and coolly shifted to rest her weight on her good leg. “Took a blast to the stomach; Banner tried to take a look at it but he’s already started healing.”

“Lucky him. You can call off that eyebrow, Romanov; I meant it. What about your friend—Barton—how’s he?”

She shrugged. “Alive, I guess. I don’t know; he locked himself in the bathroom.”

It struck Tony that neither her tone nor her expression changed shade and yet her concern for the archer still rang clear as a bell.

“And you?” she prompted.

His head snapped up. “Me what?”

She let the slightest edge of something crease the corners of her expression; it looked like a cross between inquisitiveness and concern but, whatever it was, it read as genuine. “How are you holding up? You almost died today.”

“Never felt better,” he answered without missing a beat but the blasé smirk was purely automatic by this point and it tasted awful.

Choppy curls spilled onto her shoulder as she tilted her head and her lips quirked with what looked awfully like mischief. “Oh, really?”

He nearly thanked her for the beat change; he really didn’t have the stomach for sympathy tonight, but banter... he could manage banter. “Of course; I’m invincible, remember?”

“How are those cracked ribs treating you, Mr Invincible?”

“Hey, how did you -? Do you have X-ray vision?”

She very nearly laughed as she had the audacity to look pleased with herself. “You do what you do; I do what I do.”

“Well, you can tell Rogers I’m accounted for; Jarvis checked me over and gave me the all clear.”

“Did he?”

“What do you think I keep him around for? Tap dancing lessons?”

Tony held his breath, waiting for her to believe him while praying that Jarvis didn’t decide to play lie detector and contradict him now of all times.

The spy looked him up and down, slowly, methodically, her brow set low in suspicion. She gave a shrug when she seemed convinced; he entertained no disillusions that he had fooled her but there wasn’t enough gushing blood and protruding bones to validate her fighting him.

To his surprise, she didn’t turn and leave then, even though, ostensibly, her task was accomplished. She remained standing there, her gaze sweeping over the poorly lit workshop, the hall of armours, the assembly line, and finally falling to the bits of mangled armour haphazardly littering the floor. “This is a mess,” she commented as she toed at a crumpled shin guard.

“Eh, I can fix it,” Tony said, flippantly.

“You can?”

“Sure. It’ll be good as new. Probably better. But, for now, I’m just going to mash together whatever’s salvageable from _that_ -” he pointed with a pen to the scrap at her feet, “- with whatever’s salvageable of _that_ -” he whirled the pen around to indicate the battered MK VI standing wonkily in its allotted niche in the wall alongside the other armours, “- and hopefully end up with something that’s at least flight capable,” he concluded.

Natasha nodded, clearly impressed by the idea. “And you can have that up and running by, what, next week?”

“Tomorrow,” he clarified without flair.

Her eyes noticeably widened. “That soon?”

“It... might be necessary.”

“Why?”

Tony opened his mouth but caution kicked in and he closed it without making a sound in between. He was tired and sore and in desperate want of a confidante, but he hadn’t for a moment forgotten that this was the same woman who slipped past his guard just a year earlier. He had to bear in mind that whatever he said stood a fair chance of ending up in a report of some kind.

But the lady had asked a question and it would be rude not to answer it.

He pushed away from the desk and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Mindlessly, he twirled the pen in his hands and watched it as if it were the most fascinating thing in the room. “New York just got hit by the biggest terrorist attack in history,” he said, his voice low and stripped of all show as he attempted to steer the topic. “The portal’s closed, sure, but we’re not in the clear yet. The cleanup from this will be... colossal.”

“Damage Control crews are already setting up,” Natasha pointed out. “They’ll have the streets cleaned up by morning.”

“That’s... not really what I meant. I think a better word is ‘fallout.’ The buildings can be fixed and the markets can recover, but people... people are scared. They’ll be scared for a long time. That’s where we come in. We... heroes,” he clarified and flippantly spun his hand in the air. “Even if we can’t do anything tangible, we could at least put on a brave face and assure them that it’s gonna be okay.”

“Sounds noble.” She tilted her head again, her sculpted brows knitting, her eyes narrowing. “But you could do that without armour.”

He huffed a dry laugh and his ribs reminded him not to do that so suddenly. “Iron Man inspires a lot more hope than Tony Stark does.”

“But you have other suits.” Natasha nodded to the armours standing stoically in their niches. “Why can’t you just use an older model?”

“They’re not compatible with the new core.” Tony tapped the reactor in his chest. “Retro-fitting will take longer than just welding those two scrap-heaps together.”

“Don’t you think a banged-up Iron Man might be a poor publicity move?”

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like,” he countered and immediately recognized his mistake when a little spark of understanding ignited in her hazel eyes as they widened ever so subtly.

His guard had slipped yet again and he had let it. Even so, he found himself unashamed. The world had just almost ended and he had just almost died; candour seemed appropriate, even necessary.

He let his breath out in a sigh that dragged his shoulders down. “I need a suit,” he confessed, quietly, wishing they could go back to lighthearted banter. “I don’t think even Cap sees it yet, but another attack—from out there or our own backyard—is imminent. If I were going to try bring the world to its knees, I’d strike now when people are distracted and defenceless. It would be perfect; no one would see it coming, no one could do anything. And if I can figure that out, how long do you think it will take for someone less charitable to put two and two together? How long until some maniac with a flashy gimmick and a half decent WMD pops up? I can’t afford to not be ready, Natasha; I need a suit.”

When he finished, he realized he had hunched in on himself. Instead of straightening up, he slowly wrapped his arms tighter around himself, hoping he was only imagining he was shaking.

Natasha, on the other hand, didn’t flinch, but he did glimpse her lips parting with a quick inhalation, her sharp eyes darting, instinctively picking up on the key areas of his expression, searching for his tells, reading his mind. He may as well have told her not to bother; there wasn’t much lost in translation between what he thought and what he said anymore.

He waited for an empty reassurance or a thinly veiled lecture on crutches; he could already hear the “It’s someone else’s job to worry about that” or the “Your imagination’s getting away from you; it’s not that bad.” He didn’t care to hear whatever useless response she gave.

But when she spoke, her voice held no trace of callousness or carelessness; it was low and soft, reaching out to him like a hand in the dark. Without much written in her expression but with a subtle intensity in the glint of her eyes that read like a promise, she told him: “When the next big thing comes, you won’t have to face it alone. Not ever again.”

He gave a shallow huff of a laugh. “Why? Because I’m part of a team now? You really think this thing is gonna last?” His cynicism was half-hearted at best, but his doubt was genuine.

She didn’t answer immediately and the beat of contemplation added gravity to her careful words. “I think... it will be if it needs to be.”

“How Shakespearean of you.”

“Don’t you want it to last?”

Tony gave a hollow shrug; frankly, he was tired of talking now. “I don’t know. It worked but it also almost didn’t work. I can’t argue: many hands make light work. But what if today was a complete fluke? What if we end up creating more problems than we solve? What if Bruce is right and we just end up blowing ourselves up?”

“But what if we make it work?” she countered.

“Well, that would be... fantastic. Probably impossible, but -” not bothering with a warning, he broke off and rubbed his eyes again; the edges of his vision were growing hazy—he blamed the poor lighting.

It was quite the task to focus on breathing without gasping or making a show of it and he unwittingly ushered in a strange, stiff silence as he tried to catch his breath; by the time he did, he had lost his will to talk further.

Natasha still didn’t leave. She wasn’t put off by his abruptly abandoning the conversation; whether it be from a discerning empathy or a well-honed patience, he wasn’t sure. She gave him a moment before closing the distance between them with catlike grace, waiting until she’d drawn his attention again before putting her hand on his shoulder.

It was a common gesture that he’d grown acutely uncomfortable with in recent years, but right now it felt like an anchor. The touch stilled his thoughts and he drew his gaze up to find she had on that little half smile that echoed the sincerity and sweetness of Natalie; he wondered if she brought that up on command or if it was actually her—whatever the case, it felt like the first rays of sunlight after a long, terrible storm and he just wanted to hold on to it forever.

“C’mon, it’s been a long day,” she said, “I want shawarma now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yeah, Tony’s always gonna have the arc reactor in my stories... sorry not sorry...)
> 
> Some stories in this collection will just be polished up old ones (like this) but there should be some new instalments as well...
> 
> * Title taken from the song “Closing Time” by Semisonic


	3. “When Will You Be Home?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha’s about to set off on a classified mission for SHIELD; while she waits for her flight, Tony takes it upon himself to keep her company.

Red-eye flights are ideally inexpensive, one is guaranteed to get a seat, and waiting around in an almost empty airport is so much more manageable than an airport swarming with constant comings and goings.

It was currently quarter-past midnight. Natasha’s flight was at 2 am.

These days, she no longer began new missions mere seconds after completing a previous mission, inventing covers and speed-reading through classified files while running out of taxis and catching last-minute flights. She wasn’t sure how life had worked out this way, that she could go entire weeks without ever so much as glimpsing a restricted mission report. She was quite pleased with her current circumstance, even if extended periods of tranquility tended to make her nervous.

As much as she enjoyed the peace, she knew it wasn’t to last, so she wasn’t all that surprised when Coulson contacted her and assigned her a new mission: a deep infiltration operation requiring an intricate and delicate cover, the likes of which she specialized in.

The call came through two hours ago, waking her from a deep, sound sleep (another benefit of her new routine). Without hesitation, she accepted the assignment. She had never declined a mission in all her espionage career, and even though she was now a member of a ragtag group of superheroes tasked with keeping the world safe, she was still an agent of SHIELD, first and foremost.

Immediately awake, she dressed and packed a rucksack of essentials in thirteen minutes flat. Sneaking out of the Tower without a farewell to her team, she caught a taxi and instructed the driver to drop her off at the airport.

Now she sat in a little airport cafe, strategically placing herself in a far corner at a small table, ignoring her cup of coffee as she read through the mission files on her smartphone and prepared herself for the mission.

Focussed on the heavily-detailed files, she tuned out the calm music, the quiet clinking and clanging of dishes and cutlery, and the infrequent but loud, emotional reunions or farewells of strangers.

Never absolutely ignorant of her surroundings, she registered the presence of a newcomer approaching her small table but easily dismissed them as a waiter. She didn’t bother tearing her gaze or attention from her phone... until the person grabbed an empty chair and noisily dragged it over to join her.

She closed her phone and tensed for a confrontation but, when she looked up, all she saw was a very familiar face.

“Stark?” Despite her confusion, she calmed down as she realized the only danger she was in was that of an awkward conversation with her teammate.

“Hi. Your coffee’s cold,” he said, simply, as he sat down in his obnoxiously acquired chair and placed a fresh cup of coffee on the table. He put it down in the middle, as if cautiously offering food to a ferrel animal, afraid of an attack.

“What are you doing here?” Natasha demanded, ignoring the coffee.

“Caught you heading out the Tower with a backpack,” Tony explained, his gaze fixed on his own coffee—a pitch black, triple shot espresso, Natasha noticed, but decided it was an insignificant detail in this picture. “You looked like you were heading out on a mission or something.”

“You know my missions are classified and dangerous,” she said with a blatant and serious tone. “Why did you follow me?”

He smirked, a trademark expression for him. “I know for a fact not all your missions are dangerous. Playing personal assistant to a mad scientist?” He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.

“That was dangerous,” Natasha protested. “I worked for you for a week, and within that time, you managed to incite the rage of a rogue inventor and a shady technologist to the point that an army of drones tried to obliterate you and ended up destroying an entire expo city. And you nearly set the house on fire three times while I was there—don’t think I forgot about that.”

“But did you die?” he asked and laughed a moment later. “My life’s not like that _all_ the time; it was just that week, I promise.”

“I don't believe you. Now: you didn’t leave the safety of the Tower and follow me all the way to this airport to exchange banter. What do you want?”

Tony shrugged, casually, and slipped his gaze down to the coffee cups sitting idle on the table. “I don’t want anything, Romanov,” he answered, plainly.

“Don’t play dumb: you want to know where I’m going.”

“We’ve been on the same team for a few months now; I’m used to you just randomly sneaking off on missions for Fury. And, okay, I’ll admit: I am curious about something.”

“I don’t guarantee an answer,” Natasha warned, slowly crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.

He read her guarded expression but it didn’t deter him from launching his questions, rapid-fire. “Why do you even bother being an Avenger if your loyalty is to SHIELD? I thought you were the one who wanted the Avengers to work so why do you play on one team and then jump to another? I mean, you switch sides like a chameleon changes colour. Why?”

“It would only be switching sides if one assumes SHIELD and the Avengers are on opposing sides.”

“Cryptic. Cute, but I expected that.”

“I was never actually considered for the Initiative,” she confessed, lowering her voice. “I was meant to be a part of the Secret Avengers Initiative: basically, the spy division. Somehow, I ended up on the big leagues team, but it’s just a ‘wrong time, wrong place,’ situation. This team takes on rampaging robots and deranged dictators. The really loud stuff; it’s... it’s not my forte. But SHIELD-sanctioned missions call for my unique skills. That’s why I accept these assignments, because I don’t have a lot to give in this world, but what I can, I do.”

“Okay. I think I get it.” Tony paused to take a long sip of coffee. He kept his gaze on his cup for a moment longer as he seemed to consider. “But you didn’t really answer my question. Why do you stay?”

She opened her mouth to answer but silence—between them and in her own mind—met the simple question.

Everything she did was calculated and measured. Every action, every word—everything had to have a reason and it had to work towards a desired outcome. She didn’t do superfluous things—on a mission, that could cost precious intel or even lives.

But staying in Avengers Tower, staying on with the team... Fury hadn’t ordered her to do so and she didn’t feel like she did it just to follow Clint either.

She remembered what she said, back in the workshop as the dust began settling after the aliens and the mayhem swept through the city: “It will be if it needs to be.” She still believed that but... that wasn’t what kept her coming back.

She gave him a shrug—it came off much more casual than she felt. “It’s home.”

Tony breathed out a light laugh that read as understanding rather than teasing. “Alright. So when will you be home?” he asked. Awaiting her reply, he sipped again at his coffee—just like her, he was playing it nonchalant, and just like her, it wasn’t working anymore.

“Probably sometime in January,” Natasha said. She reached across the table and finally accepted the fresh coffee. It was full of cream, sugar, and she detected a hint of spices. Vaguely, she wondered how he knew, but quickly dismissed the thought.

“Do your missions always take so long?”

“I was supposed to be your personal assistant for longer. Much longer. That’s not how it worked out. Usually, I can determine and control when my cover is blown...”

He smiled at the jab.

They lapsed into silence after that. It was... strange. Companionable but not all that familiar. Still, neither felt pressured to fill it.

Music played on in the background: the sedate, acoustic versions of pop songs radio stations only played in the late, late hours. People came and went; the inventor and the spy watched the touching reunions and farewells as detached observers. Time ticked away. A disembodied, impartial voice called out boarding flights at regular intervals.

Words passed, unspoken, between the two as they smoothly, mutually avoided eye contact.

The voice over the loudspeaker called out another call to board. Natasha stood up and swung the rucksack over her shoulder.

“That's my flight,” she said, simply.

“I'll walk you to the gate,” Tony offered, pushing his chair back and standing up.

They walked in step through the airport to the departure gates, letting the silence settle for just a bit longer.

“So... January?”

“Huh?” Natasha paused in the doorway to the winding corridor that would lead her to the plane. Fellow passengers continued on their way, oblivious.

“You’ll be back in January, right?” Tony asked, his nonchalance fracturing with an ever so slightly furrowed brow.

“Yeah,” Natasha nodded in confirmation, her own casual mask well in place. “Not sure when exactly, but January, definitely.”

“If you want... you could call when you get back,” he said, averting his gaze again. “I could come pick you up. Unless you like taking the taxi...”

She let her own nonchalance fall away so she could give him a genuine smile. “Thanks.”

She waited a beat longer. She’d spent the last two hours watching so many farewells play out, but she hadn’t expected to feature in one of her own.

The voice over the loudspeaker called for boarding once again; Natasha took it as her cue to leave.

“Goodbye!” Tony called as she disappeared out of sight, just too far away to respond or even let him know she heard.

She boarded the plane, found her seat, and set her gaze out the window to watch as the lights of the airport and the city slipped away.

For the first time ever, she actually felt like she was leaving something behind... something worth returning to...

Something that felt a lot like home.


	4. Only When It Rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Natasha, a rainy day, and shared experience...

Everyone had a lounge as part of their mini-apartments in the Tower: not too big or too small, tailored to their individual tastes, and comfortably furnished. Natasha was quite fond of her cozy little suite but the main living room held a certain appeal that the seclusion of her own room just couldn’t afford tonight. So, as cold rain relentlessly drenched New York, she took advantage of the blessedly mission-free evening and curled up on the big empty couch with a horde of pillows, a crochet blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, and a stack of familiar books.

Her solitude was not to last; she was midway through a Sherlock Holmes short story when the sound of sock-clad feet dragging along the carpet pricked her ears.

One of her teammates entered the room, unabashedly coming up and leaning on the back of the couch directly behind her; the faint smell of sweat, coffee, and motor oil immediately betrayed her intruder’s identity, negating the need for her to look up.

He was intent on making his presence known; for every second she actively ignored him, he leaned closer and closer until his chin rested heavily on top of her head.

For a fleeting moment, she considered smacking him in the face with the book—the man had not one ounce of self-preservation in his body, it would serve him right and maybe even teach him an important lesson. But she liked this book; it was old and smelled like mystery and adventure. So, not wanting to ruin the pages in the slightest, she suppressed the impulse.

“Did you make hot chocolate?” he eventually asked, his low voice reverberating through her skull.

By way of reply, she reached for her rose-coloured mug and took a sip—admittedly, she had forgotten about it for a while but it was still satisfyingly warm.

“With milk?” he prodded.

“Yup,” she answered, adding an obnoxious pop to the “P.”

“In a saucepan?”

“Uh-huh.”

“On the stove?”

“Affirmative,” she said and frowned. She turned and tilted her head to look at him; she searched his expression, trying to decide if he was offended that she hadn’t made any for him.

Brown eyes glared down at her, heavy with disapproval. “Are you incapable of cleaning up after yourself, Romanov?”

Ah. That was it.

She returned to her book, but her divided attention had irreparably flattened the voices and disrupted the scene. “It’s one saucepan, Stark.”

“Are you aware you split milk on the counter?”

“Maybe. It wasn’t much.”

“It’s still sticky.”

“It can wait for the morning.”

“And would it kill you to put things away after you use them?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a slob.”

Casually, she turned a page that she hadn’t actually read. “Did you really drag yourself out of the workshop just to hound me about dirty dishes again?”

There was a long pause and then he huffed out a sigh; it sounded frustrated, but Natasha sensed he was no longer concerned with her untidiness. “I need a break,” he grumbled and she instantly understood.

AIM had been a particularly pesky thorn in their side for the past month. Typically, the fledgling organization of tech-terrorists weren’t very competent or well-equipped, so apprehending them took minimal effort. Clearly, they had taken note of this because they exerted themselves in improving their skills.

Their think-tank finally managed to cobble together an arsenal of decently functional weaponary which their agents promptly put to use in a strategic crime-spree to accumulate money, supplies, and more scientists.

The concepts of their tech were reminiscent of the television shows and comics everyone enjoys as children: freeze-rays, flame-throwers, gloop-guns, matter-altering blasters, and the like. They seemed silly but they proved disproportionately effective.

Hulk and Iron Man, as the team’s tanks, bore the brunt of their attacks. While Banner’s indestructible alter ego walked away without so much as a scratch, the armour had been reduced to an inoperable mess of distorted, paint-stripped metal and fried circuitry.

To make matters worse, not only was Tony grounded from missions for as long as he didn’t have a functioning suit of armour, but the rest of the team needed new, improved gear if they were to hold their ground against AIM’s next attack.

So, while everyone else could cool off in the intervals between training and calls to assemble, their resident tech-guy literally had to work night and day to get their equipment to some level of adequate functionality. Bruce helped as much as possible, and he contributed a fair few innovations, but mechanical engineering really wasn’t his area of expertise so Tony inevitably had to carry on the hard slog alone.

Natasha felt a tug of sympathy, realizing, not for the first time, that no one gave more to this team than him.

She plucked one of the throw pillows from her stack, set it beside her hip, gave it a quick pat, and drew no further attention to it.

He hesitated for a moment, eyeing the unprecedented invitation with forgivable caution. It didn’t take him very long to calculate the risk and he came tumbling onto the couch from behind like an ungainly cat.

Natasha properly returned to her book, ignoring his unnecessarily animated squirming as he shifted to get comfortable.

He settled onto his back, hooked one arm over the back of the couch, slung his other arm across his stomach, and stretched his legs out—the tips of his toes not quite reaching the armrest on the other side.

When he finally found rest for his soul, he nudged her softly, tentatively, with his dark head; unthinkingly, she complied, slipping a hand off the pillow in her lap to run her fingers through his hair. He let out a soft, content sigh and she shook her head, the beginnings of a smile tugging on her lips; he really was a cat—a big, disheveled, exhausted, caffeine-dependent, attention-craving, touch-starved cat.

She wouldn’t admit it under threat of death or dismemberment, but to sense one of her teammates relax at her touch made her feel immensely honoured. She just wasn’t so sure when exactly they grew this comfortable around one another...

“Jarvis? Tv,” Tony instructed in a barely audible mumble, rudely ending the amicable silence they so fleetingly shared.

Fast noise shattered the calm as the AI complied and turned the television on, tuning in to a movie just as a car chase was in progress.

Natasha glanced up at the movie—a blockbuster from the eighties she couldn’t remember the name or plot of—and then down at Tony who continued lying on his back with his eyes closed as if he intended to fall asleep.

She rolled her eyes. “Jarvis? Please mute the TV.”

Blessed silence replaced the cacophony of screeching tyres, revving engines, and fake gunshots and explosions; the high-definition screen still flashed with vibrant action, but at least none of the noise accompanied it.

“Don’t turn off my noise,” Tony grumbled.

“I’m reading,” she told him, flatly.

“I need noise.”

“Well, I was here first.”

He tipped his head back to glare up at the ceiling. “Hey, J: since when do other people’s orders override mine?”

“You requested the television be on, Sir; Miss Romanov requested it be muted. There was no conflict of orders,” Jarvis explained, his disembodied voice as calm and even as ever. “Also, Miss Romanov said ‘please’.”

Natasha smirked; she didn’t know when or how she got on Jarvis’ good side, but she suddenly knew exactly whose side she’d take in the inevitable apocalyptic rebellion of artificial intelligence.

Tony’s eyes fell closed as he blew out a defeated sigh and flicked his fingers. “Fine. Turn it off,” he conceded, gruffly but quietly.

The screen blinked to black and the spy frowned. She had expected him to put up more of a fight, to order Jarvis to put the volume up obscenely loud and then stare her down as she found increasingly creative ways of counteracting his instructions until finally someone (probably Rogers) had to come and forcibly separate them like squabbling siblings.

She let the matter slide, supposing he was just sour that the AI he had designed and built by the sweat of his brow had taken her side. Taking advantage of the re-established quiet, she finished the short story and drank the last of her hot chocolate (now room-temperature chocolate).

Angry thunder rumbled through heavy skies and the deluge intensified; her shoulder twinged, sharply. Beside her, the echo of a shiver ran through Tony and he wrapped his arms around himself. A cough began in his chest but he fought it down by harshly clearing his throat.

“Hey, you alright?” she asked without thinking.

“Always,” he mumbled, hoarsely.

One would have to possess the IQ of an almond to believe that, but his tone told her he wouldn’t respond well to badgering tonight. She tried to focus back on her book, but with her concern piqued, the story held no further appeal; she read a number of sentences without reading them at all.

Without making a show of it, she listened to his breathing, suspecting the cough wasn’t an out-of-the-blue, isolated occurrence. Her worry gained credit: there was a wheeze in the inhale and a pant-like huff in the exhale—it was faint, infrequent, and barely audible, but it certainly wasn’t normal and the spy couldn’t forgive herself for not having picked up on it earlier.

She glanced down at him, realizing she hadn’t taken a good look at him since he came in—she hadn’t had a reason to. His skin, usually a rich tan thanks to his predominantly Italian heritage, was nearing the realm of unhealthy pale, causing the circles around his eyes to appear deeper and darker than usual.

Careful not to draw any attention to her little investigation, she shifted the hand still idly running through his hair to brush against his forehead; he felt warm, but not quite feverish or clammy.

Having just come from the workshop, he was still wearing one of those old faded grey shirts with a hole cut out for the arc reactor; she peered at the familiar blue glow but had to admit she wouldn’t be able to tell if something was wrong with it.

“It’s late,” she stated.

“Is it?” His reply came in the form of a tired mumble, the sarcasm poorly forced now.

“Why don’t you go to bed?”

“Got work to finish; I’m just... takin’ a break.”

She didn’t miss the pause and the sharp intake of breath.

“You’ve been working for two days straight; surely you’re almost done.”

He let out a sharp, terse laugh and winced in immediate regret.

“C’mon; what do you have left to do?” she asked.

“Stuff.”

“‘Stuff’?”

“Yes: stuff. A lot of... stuff.”

“What kind of ‘stuff’?”

He huffed. “EMP arrows, radar dampeners, improved heat shielding for your suit -”

“You’re mumbling, Stark,” she interrupted, “I can’t hear you.”

Tony’s face twisted in a grimace and he pressed the heel of his hand against his chest, right beside the reactor, confirming her suspicions. “You’re really disrupting my peace and quiet, Romanov... Can we please have this conversation later?”

“Why? Are you having trouble breathing?” she asked, pointedly but not sharply, smothering the question in feigned obliviousness.

“No...” he growled.

Softly, she shut her book and set it atop the stack on the end table beside the couch—it had become a superfluous prop and she was taking this matter seriously now. “Let me rephrase: Why are you having trouble breathing?”

The hand massaging the flesh around the reactor froze; calloused fingers dug into the faded fabric, the knuckles turning white.

“Stark?” Natasha prodded when a whole minute passed without him offering any kind of response.

With slow but deliberate movements, he sat up and turned to place his feet on the floor. His shoulders remained hunched inwards but he unfurled and kept his arms out, hands gripping the edge of the cushion beneath him. Although his stance suggested he was about to push himself up and leave, his tightly shut eyes and further loss of colour confirmed he didn’t want to attempt anything more vertical than he already had.

“It’s the rain,” he eventually said, the gruffness gone.

Natasha immediately understood. “It makes your chest hurt, doesn’t it?”

He let out a laugh: breathless and brittle and nowhere near mirthful. “Didn’t know you had such a gift for understatement.”

She shrugged with her good shoulder. “I try.”

He didn’t seem in a rush to offer anything more and she didn’t want to press or pry so they fell into a bout of silence, neither one sure of it was uncomfortable or not.

Natasha fiddled idly with the blanket draped over her curled up legs, her fingers ghosting over the perfectly symmetrical flower designs; over the years, the colour had faded from a rich rose to a softer reddish-pink but it had no holes and no frayed edges. The old woman who made it for her had lived across the road from Clint’s farm where Natasha stayed until she became a fully-fledged SHIELD agent. They told everyone that she was his distant cousin who had come to live with him because she had just been orphaned. The old woman took a liking to her with breathtaking speed; she cooked meals for her, gave her clothing and books and other odds and ends that her daughters had left behind when they moved out of home, and she even tried to teach her some of her favourite crafts. The way the old woman would crochet and knit and sew so beautifully, so precisely despite her hands being so viciously deformed by severe arthritis had astounded Natasha. The rose blanket was one of the first gifts anyone had ever gone out of their way to make for her and she valued it highly; it became and remained her greatest comfort on stormy days.

“I get it, too,” she finally said.

He lifted his head to look at her, a strange fusion of wary disbelief and tentative empathy glinting in his eyes.

A weakness for a weakness, she decided. It was only fair.

She unfurled her legs and didn’t censor the instinctive grimace as she did so. She shoved the blanket aside and rolled her right pant-leg up to her knee, thus revealing her calf and the jagged, faded scar she had a tendency to hide with stockings or make-up. “I got this when I was seven,” she said, controlling her tone but not utterly eliminating all trace of feeling. “A blade severed the ligaments and went as far as the bone. I would’ve been crippled, but they... well, the scientists saw instances like that as opportunities to test out experimental treatments and procedures. I healed up, the leg’s as strong as the other, and all I have left is that scar and a dull ache when it rains.”

Tony didn’t look as repulsed by the grim, albeit redacted, story as she expected him to be—she was also more than glad he didn’t point out the obviously omitted details. They didn’t know everything about one another, but they knew more about where they’d been and what they’d done than most.

“Also my shoulder,” she continued, very lightly touching the joint in question. “A very badly botched assassination attempt. And this -” she discreetly lifted her shirt to show him the gunshot scar on her stomach, “- is from a failed mission. I have a couple others but those are the ones that give me trouble.”

Tony gave a small nod and absently returned his gaze to the coffee table. “The, um, the surgeon who helped me... who put this in -” he tapped the reactor with jittery fingers, making a sound like ice chinking against glass, “- he... they had to carve out a portion of my... of my lungs and ribs to fit the casing in.” He paused to breathe and smooth out his expression; she suspected he was fighting more than the breathlessness to get the story out. “On a normal day, I can get by. No problem. Don’t even really feel it. But, sometimes... when the weather changes... things get a little flared up.”

“Is that why you prefer California?” she asked, quirking a corner of her lips in a smile and infusing her voice with a lighter tone.

He breathed out a short laugh through his nose. “Yeah, kinda. It’s not so much the pain that’s a problem,” he added and nodded to the pillow he’d been resting his head on, “lying down flat makes it worse.”

A shot of guilt twinged in her chest. “If you needed more pillows, you could’ve just asked.”

He quickly shook his head. “No, it’s fine; I wasn’t meaning to stay, anyway.”

Natasha pulled up a mild but unmistakable look of disapproval—one she usually had to use on Clint when he thought it was a good idea to carry on his daily exercise routine despite cracked ribs, a concussion and a sprained shoulder. “You are not going back to work now.”

Tony blinked like he hadn’t understood her. “I have to,” he said with absolute simplicity.

“You’ve been working for two days straight.”

“Yeah, and I’m not finished yet.”

“Stark, that’s not -”

An obscenely loud crack of thunder interrupted her. They hadn’t anticipated it so they both cringed; an action that hurt more than it should’ve, leaving them both with grimaces as the moment passed.

“Where’s our resident Viking when we need ‘im?” Tony quipped, his voice too taut to sound as jovial as he intended.

“We could call the X-Men.”

“Yeah, except they don’t like me.”

“Oh, they just don’t know you,” Natasha said with a tease in her voice, enjoying the return to banter. Still, she purposely smoothed out her smile and let a beat pass. “Don’t go back to work tonight,” she told him, not as a command but, rather, as a gentle plea. “I don’t... we don’t need you to work yourself into the ground for us.”

He didn’t look at her, didn’t budge, he just sat there on the edge of the couch looking like he was about to push himself up onto his feet and make an exit. Only the twitch of his jaw working let her know he had heard her and he was considering.

Finally, he leaned back and stiffly sank into the couch. “Okay,” he conceded, quietly, closing his eyes and letting his head rest on the back cushions. “But can I have my noise back on?”

“No.”

“Eh, worth a shot...”

“You can’t have your noise on,” Natasha said, picking her book up off the side-table, “but I don’t mind reading out loud to you.”

He cracked his eyes open and glanced to the old hardcover she had open in her lap, his brow furrowing. “Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yup. What, you don’t like him? I also have -”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Tony clarified quickly. “I used to read those books when I was a kid.”

“Really?”

“Are you kidding? I loved them!”

Natasha gave him another teasing smile. “Hmm, no wonder you’re so smart...”

“You know what?” Tony said, strategically stealing pillows from her stash and setting them up on the other end of the couch. “You’re kinda like Irene Adler.”

“Oh, yeah? How so?”

He flashed her a grin. “I think you’re one of the few people who could ever outwit me.”

* * *

An hour and one short mystery later, Natasha glanced over to find Tony had fallen fast asleep.

He seemed comfortable enough, propped semi-upright by nearly all the pillows she had amassed, so she didn’t see a necessity to disturb him and insist he go to bed.

She stood up off the couch, easily doing so quietly. She was half-way through folding her blanket when she had an idea. Carefully, she draped the still warm blanket over the sleeping genius, switched off the lamp she had read by so the only light in the room was the flickering splashes of colour the still muted TV threw across the room. In a whisper, she asked Jarvis to turn the volume up just enough for it to be good background noise to help Tony stay asleep.

She collected her books and stopped by the kitchen to put her mug by the sink where she then saw the “mess” that had annoyed Tony. It really wasn’t much of a mess at all, just the saucepan, a wooden spoon, a teaspoon, and a little splash of milk and a dusting of cocoa powder on the stove and counter that she hadn’t even noticed.

It only took a few minutes to clean up. Before she went off to bed, she left a sticky note on the coffeemaker, the first appliance that would greet Tony in the morning.

_Very truly yours,_

_Adler_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry it took me so long to get this one back up. I’ve been hitting so much writer’s block trying to write something that follows on from the last chapter more but I can’t get anything to work.  
> But this is the next major instalment so I’ll just let it be.


	5. Jet Lag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha’s away on another mission for SHIELD. Tony needs some help getting out of his own head. A long-distance phone call bridges the gap.

_Just do it._

Tony turned his phone over between his hands, flipped it over in one hand, then switched it back to the other.

_Just call her._

He tapped the screen, watched it wake up and stared at the glowing blue wallpaper until it slipped back to sleep.

_If she can’t pick up; she won’t._

He flipped it between his hands again.

_You can’t lose anything._

He made to flip the phone from his right to his left for perhaps the thousandth time but he didn’t catch it properly this time. It slid to the floor, clattering on the concrete, interrupting the silence and giving him enough of a jolt that he actually gasped aloud.

The shock—small that it was—also made his heart drop out of rhythm for a moment. It beat out of sync for a sickening few seconds then jumped straight into a race.

Tony grit his teeth as he picked up the traitorous phone, holding it a bit tighter than necessary as he shut his eyes and tipped his head back to rest against the wall. In a rare moment of graciousness, his brain stayed quiet while he focussed on breathing, focussed on slowing his heart back to an acceptable pace, and focussed yet again on ignoring the strange twisting, crushing sensation in his chest.

_You’re being stupid, Stark._

He drew in as deep a breath as he could manage and released it.

_Just do it. Call her._

He held up his phone, prompted the screen to wake up again, and this time even went as far as unlocking it.

_You won’t disturb her; if she can’t answer, she won’t. Simple._

He opened up his contacts list.

_What are you even worrying about? She probably has her phone off anyway..._

He scrolled through the list.

Agent.

Dorito.

Giant Green Rage Monster/Science Bro.

Happy.

One-Eyed Wonder.

Pepper Potts.

Platypus.

_Romanov._

He opened the contact and pressed the little green call button before he had opportunity to dissuade himself again.

Natasha’s picture filled the screen. The picture wasn’t great quality but Tony had chosen to pair it with her contact info because it was one of the few he had of her smiling—genuinely smiling, that is.

The call connected—wherever in the world she was, at least he knew her phone was on.

He held the phone up to his ear, listening to each ring with a contradictory mix of hope and trepidation.

By the fifth ring, he was ready to believe she wasn’t going to answer. Just as it started a sixth round, she picked up; the dull little _blip_ sound set his heart racing for another stretch.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Romanov.” He grimaced to himself. Why was his voice so hoarse? _Well, genius? When was the last time you drank something?_ An assortment of coffee mugs littered about the place caught his attention. _Okay, rephrase that: When was the last time you drank water?_

“Stark?” There was something in her tone... a hint of surprise, maybe some disbelief, but he was pretty sure there was also a smile. “Isn’t it midnight in New York?”

Tony glanced around until he found one of his computers displaying the time as a screensaver. 12:33 am. “Eh, more or less. What time is it by you?”

“Half past six. In the morning.”

 _Six hours ahead._ Tony tried to recall where in the world that put her. _Europe? North Africa?_ “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No, no; my alarm’s set for six.”

“Ah.”

“So... why’d you call, Shellhead?”

“Just wanted—” _Just wanted to talk to someone._ “—to check when exactly you were getting back. I’m happy to pick you up but, you know, my schedule’s crazy packed. Gotta see if I can even fit you in.”

A light huff brushed the mic; a laugh through the nose. “Right. Well, the way things are going so far, it looks like I might be back earlier than expected. Maybe this Sunday—Tuesday next week, tops.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. I’ll see you then, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

It took a handful of awkward, silence-filled seconds for Tony to realize he had just expertly manoeuvred them into a conversational stalemate. He scraped a hand down his face as equal parts regret and embarrassment jabbed at him.

This was usually the part when people gave in to the dead zone, said goodbye and hung up; but he didn’t want the call to end so soon—not after he’d spent a whole forty minutes sitting on the cold floor in a corner of the workshop, compulsively flipping his phone over in his hands, debating whether to bother her or not.

He rushed to think of something—anything. The noise in his brain kicked up but he couldn’t catch anything distinct.

Natasha didn’t leave him to suffer. “So... I saw you on the news last night.”

A smile tugged at his dry lips. “Oh, yeah?”

“The Wrecking Crew? Seriously? Why do you boys get all the fun when I’m away?”

“We don’t exactly schedule these things, you know. If we did, we wouldn’t pencil them in on Hulk’s bowling day.”

Another laugh—this time more than just a breath. “Was he mad?”

“You bet he was! Which was great for us; not so great for the Wrecking Crew.”

“I only really caught the end of it on the news, but your, um... your armour looked pretty beat up.”

Tony glanced over the dismantled suit laying in pieces all over the workbenches and even the floor. The chest plate looked like a truck had ridden over it and the boots looked a little crumpled, but other than that, it wasn’t too bad. “It’s... seen better days.”

“And you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m fine.” There was just enough of a tremble in his voice to make him want to kick himself. “I’m always fine.”

“Uh-huh.” Two syllables, not even an actual word, but he could hear that disbelief so clearly; he could even see her doing that little, lopsided eyebrow furrowing-thing that accompanied that tone in particular.

He couldn’t figure out when exactly he had memorized her face, her expressions and her voice. He hadn’t been paying that much attention to her... had he?

No. No, he hadn’t. She was just... they saw each other often, that was all—they worked together (in between her missions for SHIELD, anyway). And he had a photographic memory—he could recall the faces and voices of people he just met at a glance. So it wasn’t unusual that he could see her bright as day over just a phone call; he could’ve seen anyone just as clearly...

_But you didn’t want to see just anyone..._

“Well, Mr ‘Always Fine,’ how come you’re up past your bedtime?”

“What am I? Five?”

“On a scale of one to ten.”

“You don’t miss a beat, Romanov.”

“What can I say? It’s a gift.” She was definitely smiling with that one. It slipped away in the next beat. “Seriously, though, what’s got you up?”

“I can’t sleep.” The words tumbled out before he could think. He decided he had to lighten his tone. “It’s no big deal, it’s just that there’s, um... there’s too much noise.”

“Too much noise,” Natasha echoed and then hummed as she deciphered it. “And you can’t turn it down?”

He shook his head, remembered she couldn’t see it, and choked out a “No.”

“You know, it’s been way too quiet my side. I wouldn’t mind some noise.”

He hesitated, his stomach clenching even harder. Beneath the little code they developed in the space of a few seconds, she offered a pretty clear invitation and, oh, how he wanted to accept it. Just the mere prospect of releasing the storm in his head was tempting—so, _so_ tempting—but it wasn’t a simple thing and it would take a lot of “I’s” to get it out... and people didn’t like it when he talked about his problems.

_Because you don’t have problems—you can’t. You’re a Stark; you’re Iron Man. You don’t have fears, you don’t have heart issues, and you certainly don’t have nightmares..._

“Tony?”

His breath hitched. He wrapped his free arm around himself and held tight; for whatever reason, the pressure helped. “I tried to sleep,” he said, prying the words from himself. When no interjection came, he dug deeper. “After... everything, when we got back, I dumped the suit in the ‘shop and I went to bed—my actual bed in my own room. I laid there... and I laid there and I started to drift and it was okay, I was fine, but then... then...”

“Bad dream?” She spoke softly, but the words hit like bullets.

“Yeah.”

“What did you see?”

“The portal.” He swallowed. His throat hurt. “That stupid portal.”

She made a small noise of acknowledgement and let a beat pass untouched. “It keeps showing up in my dreams, too.”

He blinked. That was... he hadn’t expected that. “It does?”

“Just snatches of it. Sometimes it’s in the sky, sometimes it’s in the ground; sometimes it’s loud and sucking everything into it and other times it’s just... there. Like it’s waiting for me.” Her voice had gone quieter, and he wondered if this was also her first time talking about this to anyone.

The indomitable Black Widow had nightmares, just like him. It was, paradoxically, both the hardest and easiest thing to believe.

“I always fall into mine,” he said, suddenly not so ashamed. “But, like, I’m flying towards it... but I’m also falling.”

“Do you ever get the Chitauri with it?”

“Sometimes; not always. Usually I just have the portal and whatever villain-of-the-week’s popped up most recently, but sometimes Yinsen—” He caught himself. That was too far.

Natasha must’ve noticed the misstep, but she left it alone. “When I have a bad dream—I mean, when it’s really, _really_ bad—I sleep on the floor.”

“And that helps?”

“It does. Somehow. It’s... kinda hard to explain.”

Actually, that he understood. His relationship with sleep had always been tenuous, but at least he used to find his bed comfortable; he even looked forward to crashing in it. But after sleeping on canvas cots for three months straight, proper mattresses felt... foreign.

_Home two years and you’re still not back to normal..._

“I don’t think I can sleep on the floor, though. I mean, I could if I had to, but—”

“You can’t lie flat,” Natasha finished for him.

_Huh. She remembered._

“But could you sleep better somewhere else?”

He shrugged to himself. “The couch is always good.”

“In your workshop?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, even though, despite proximity, he first thought of another couch, of a thunderstorm and old books and a rose coloured blanket he didn’t remember pulling over himself...

“So just sleep there.”

“Pepper says it’s not healthy.”

“Avoiding sleep is even worse for your health.”

“Granted.” He huffed out a breath, tried to fit it into a laugh at the last second. “Hey, am I allowed to ask where in the world you’re sleeping on the floor or is that classified?”

“I’m in Paris. Well, near Paris, anyway.” Like daylight, the smile was back. “And I am not sleeping on the floor. I’m staying in this cheap—” Without warning, her words cut off.

Tony strained to hear what was happening on the other end. The call hadn’t dropped, and she was still there: he could hear cars and pedestrian noise, some muffled rustling and wind blowing. It also sounded like she was walking quickly.

“Natasha?” he ventured, afraid he was intruding on something he shouldn’t or worse, distracting her.

“Sorry. I have to get going.” Despite the sudden hastiness in her voice, the apology rang true.

“Oh. Right. That’s okay. Um...” He glanced up at the ceiling as if he would find a script printed there. “Thanks. For listening.”

“No problem, Stark. Hey, if you promise to try to go sleep as soon as I hang up, I’ll call you tonight.”

“Deal.” Something lightened in his chest; he decided not to think about it. “Your tonight or mine?”

“I’ll surprise you.”

“Alright. And, Romanov?”

“Yeah?”

He couldn’t help the smirk; he wondered if she’d hear it. “We’ll always have near Paris...”

She snorted. Actually snorted. He had no idea she did that. “Go to bed, Stark!”

A discreet _blip_ signalled the end of the call.

Tony watched Natasha’s picture fade until there was just a sliver of his own reflection smiling back at him on the small screen.

_Well. You’ve done it now, Stark..._

_You’re doomed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Chapter title inspired by “Jet Lag” by Simple Plan. (That song is totally the soundtrack to this instalment.) 
> 
> (I just reeeaaally like Tony and Natasha helping each other deal with their trauma... hopefully this comes across as calm and evenly-paced, not tedious...)
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos! I appreciate every single one! Even just seeing the hit count motivates me some days!
> 
> 🍁


End file.
